USA > Mississippi > A history of the Mississippi valley, from its discovery to the end of foreign domination. The narrative of the founding of an empire, shorn of current myth, and enlivened by the thrilling adventures of discoverers, pioneers, frontiersmen, Indian fighters, and homemakers > Part 20
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GEORGE WASHINGTON. This portrait is by Geoffroy, and published in Paris Washington was then 56 years of age.
XVI
AS THE WAR DRAGGED ON.
Aid From the Spaniards at New Orleans-When the Succcessor of Hamilton at Detroit "Expressly Di- rected" the Savages to Make War on the Frontier- Robertson's Settlement on the Site of Nashville- There Were 250 Men in the Company, and 229 of Them Died by Violence Within Twelve Years- Origin of a Small-pox Epidemic Among the Indians -The Pluck of Nancy Gomer.
An important feature of the Mississippi Valley work during the war of the Revolution was displayed at New Orleans. On January 1, 1777, Don Bernado de Galvez became Governor of Louisiana. Though but twenty-one years old, he was a youth of unusual ability and of most remarkable energy.
As his first important official act, Galvez seized, at
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New Orleans, eleven British ships, all richly laden, and confiscated them. The ships had been allowed to come there by the previous governor, (Unzaga), but their presence was contrary to law.
Then when Oliver Pollock was appointed agent of the American Congress, a little later, he was per- mitted to buy and ship war materials up the river, and Galvez eventually loaned him $6,000 to forward the business.
Among the shipments made by Pollock may be mentioned, as a sample of all, 9,000 pounds of powder in 150 kegs which, under the charge of Lieutenant Linn, was conveyed up the river, and delivered to Col. William Crawford, at Wheeling, May 2, 1777. One gets an idea of what delays river commerce suffered, in those days, from the statement that it took Linn more than seven months to make this trip. It was after this perilous journey up the river that Linn went to Harrodsburg where, as Clark's diary noted, he was married with "great merriment."
In consequence of the up-river trade of the Ameri- cans the British in Florida strengthened their forces along the Bayou Manchac, and the Mississippi, above Spanish Territory. The sloop of war Sylph, with a crew of 150 men was stationed at Manchac, while fifty rangers were camped on shore. The garrison at Nat- chez was maintained by 200 men. These, by the aid of British spies in New Orleans, made the transport of supplies up the river so perilous that Pollock urged Congress to send a force to sweep the river to New Orleans. Congress did not do it, and much trouble fol- lowed the failure to accept Pollock's advice; for Galvez
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went up the river, after learning that Spain had de- clared war against England, (May 3, 1779), and on September 21, 1779, captured Natchez. The capture of Mobile and Pensacola followed, and thus all the Florida of that day passed under Spanish control. What would have happened had Florida remained under British control is a matter of curious speculation.
As the time passed in the Ohio valley, it became apparent that George Rogers Clark should have been enabled to go to Detroit. Arent Schuyler de Peyster succeeded Hamilton, at that post, and he sicked on the red blood hounds, as Hamilton had done.
In an official report to Lord George Germaine, (quoted by Roosevelt), he said : "It would be endless and difficult to enumerate to your Lordship the parties that are continually employed upon the back settle- ments. From the Illinois country to the Frontier of New York there is a continual succession. The per- petual terror and losses of the inhabitants will, I hope, operate powerfully in our favor."
In connection with this, Roosevelt says, on the au- thority of the original documents now in Canada : "The savages were expressly directed to make war on ·
non-combatants."
The British were trying to "disgust" the inhabi- tants of the frontier precisely as the French had tried to "disgust" them during the years immediately fol- lowing the defeat of Braddock.
Books have been filled with the tales of horrors and heroisms that grew out of these raids. One of the most successful was made in June, 1780, by Capt. Henry Bird, who, on the 22d, with 600 Indians and a
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few white scalpers, captured Riddle's and Martin's Stations, on the south fork of the Licking. In raising men for a return raid into Ohio, George Rogers Clark arbitrarily closed the land office at Harrodsburg, and drafted four-fifths of the men who were there to file claims. In this way he secured 970 men, and going to the Indian villages of Chillicothe and Piqua, (Pick- away Towns), he burned them and brought back sev- enteen scalps. The work had no real influence on the conflict, but it seems worth mention because it por- trays the dash of Clark.
In the meantime, however, the people on the head waters of the Tennessee had done notable work by es- tablishing a settlement on the site of Nashville. One Spencer was the first permanent settler there. He went there early in 1778 with a party of skin hunters, and when the party broke up he and one companion re- mained. Eventually the companion decided to go and Spencer broke his own knife in two in order to give a blade to the companion who had none. To share a knife blade was the final frontier test of friendship. During the ensuing winter Spencer lived in a hollow sycamore tree.
In 1779 James Robertson, of Watauga, found the deep woods calling him irresistibly, and gathering a company that included Col. John Donelson, whose daughter Rachael became the wife of Andrew Jackson, he went to where Spencer was living and established a settlement.
The party started in thirty boats down the Holston on December 22, 1779, but the frosts, (that was the "hard winter") held them at Cloud Creek until Febru-
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ary 27, 1780. The story of the voyage is remarkable. On a flat boat containing twenty-eight people a number became sick with the small-pox. The boat followed at a considerable distance behind the flotilla. The Indians who watched the expedition from the bank saw this defenceless boat far in the rear and made haste to go out with canoes to attack it. It was an easy victory, for they soon killed or captured all on board, but for months thereafter the small-pox raged among the Creeks and Cherokees, carrying off multitudes.
At another place the Indians stood on the bluffs and fired on the boats. When the crew of one boat fled below deck a young woman named Nancy Gomer took the helm and steered the boat to safety. She did not flinch, even when a bullet pierced her thigh, and it was not till her mother saw blood soaking through her skirts that anyone knew she had been hit.
The party named their settlement Nashborough after Governor A. Nash of North Carolina. "Three hundred miles of forest separated it from all neighbor- ly succor," but on May 1, 1780, the people gathered and agreed on a form of self government, much like that created by the Watauga people in earlier days. The compact was signed by 250 men, and it is noted that in twelve years from that time no more than twenty of the 250 remained alive, and all but one had died by violence. They were picked off by the Indians here and there, as they hunted for game, or worked in the fields, or went to spring or stream for water. They fell in skirmishes where parties dashed from the fort to wreak vengeance on the red marauders. The whites held the land, but they paid a frightful price for it.
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WILLIAM PENN. From a painting from life, in the possession of the Penn. Hist. Soc., made in 1666.
UNBE
EN FAITH.
or Wat's . Tracy.
Harrey
Engravà by
XVII
GNADENHUTTEN.
The Most Significant Fact in the History of the Red Americans Is, that a Number of Delawares Who Were as Cruel and Bloodthirsty as Any Others, Were by Patient Efforts Converted into Christians -Driven from Pennsylvania by White Christians and Received by Red Heathens in Ohio-Slaught- ered as They Sang Their Christian Hymns-The Blackest Crime Known to American History-Fron- tier Desperadoes Inspired by the Thought of Indians Who Would Not Fight.
Because they were willing to obey the Divine com- mand, "Seek peace and pursue it," the Delaware In- dians, who had been converted by the United Brethren preachers, (and have since been known in history as the Moravian Indians), left their homes among the
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whites in western Pennsylvania, in 1772, and re- moved to the wilderness on the Muskingum river. A settlement called Schoenbrunn (Beautiful Spring) was established early in the planting season. In the course of the year another was made nearly ten miles away from Schoenbrunn and named Gnadenhutten, while a third called Salem was built near Gnadenhut- ten. Gnadenhutten means "Tents of Grace."
The Christian white people had refused to allow the Christian Indians to live in peace in their original homes in Pennsylvania. This is an important state- ment. There is no record that either Christians, or members of churches called Christians, made any open attack on the Moravian Indians, but the white Christ- ians, (excepting the Quakers, of course), made no effort to protect their red brethren in Christ from the assaults of other people, and they are therefore to be held guilty of the crime that drove the red Christians into the wilderness.
But when the Christian Indians reached the Mus- kingum, the heathen Indians bade them welcome and gave them peace until after the Christian white people became involved in the War of the Revolution. These Indians, who believed the Christian doctrines as taught by the United Brethren, having peace, built excellent houses and good churches. They planted sufficient ground and raised good crops. They pros- pered. They made rapid progress in the simpler arts of civilization.
It is important to keep in mind that these Mora- vians were able-bodied Delawares, and that before they were converted they had all the superstitions, pro-
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pensities, instincts and ambitions of other wild, heathen Delawares. They had had as much pleasure in raid- ing their enemies and torturing prisoners at the stake as any other Delawares had.
Here, then, is the most significant fact in the his- tory of red Americans. By the patient, persistent ef- forts of a few sincere and energetic teachers those wild and cruel hunters had been changed into peace-loving, stump-grubbing farmers. The perfection of this change of ambitions and manners of life is written on the pages of history in words of fire to proclaim for- ever that the infinite pains and sorrows of the Indian wars and raids were all due to the greed and the neg- lect of the white race. Most short-sighted was the greed, most woeful the neglect.
"Money talks" much more effectively than either sentiment or religion appeals. Therefore let it be re- Inembered that the losses inflicted by any one of scores of hundreds of Indian raids amounted to more than the whole expense of converting all these Indians who are now known as Moravians.
The facts about these Indians were well known on the frontier, and in Lord Dunmore's war they were treated with kindly consideration by both parties to the fighting. But as the war of the Revolution grew hot, trouble came to the "Tents of Grace." The British officials at Detroit, in their eagerness to incite all In- dians to make war on the American frontier, strove first to bribe these Christian Indians to take up the hatchet. Failing in that, they sicked on the heathen In- dians to destroy the Moravian settlements, and scatter the inhabitants, knowing that a Christian, when hun-
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gry and naked, might be more easily persuaded to devilish deeds than when in a home of peace and plenty. White men who called themselves Christians, and who in time of peace would have given money cheerfully in aid of missionary enterprise, were made so brutal by the passions of war that they deliberately plotted to compel by force the Christian Indians into the per- petration of hellish deeds.
At the behest of the Detroit authorities the savage Indians, when raiding the American settlements, passed by the way of Gnadenhutten-the Tents of Grace- and compelled the peace lovers to entertain and supply them with food. And on returning from raids, care was taken to lay the trail through Gnadenhutten in order to make the suffering Americans believe that the peace lovers had done the mischief.
But the whites were not deceived. The red Christ- ians and their white teachers soon came to feel a strong sympathy for the raided Americans, and a stronger dislike for the raiding British and Indians. It was impossible to avoid supplying the raiders with food, without a fight, and fight these red Christians would not. But a time came when their humanity bade them to warn the Americans that raids impended, and thus many a woman and many a child escaped to safety who would have been slaughtered by the raiders.
And this humane work was done at great peril, for the raiders were sure to learn about it, and sooner or later, the humane messengers were sure to be taken and slaughtered. In fact, the savage Delawares came to look upon the Christians as traitors to the tribe, even when the Christians refused to take up the tomahawk.
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How they felt when they learned that the Christians were warning the whites whenever raids impended may easily be imagined.
As the dangers of these red Christians became known among the Americans, efforts were made by the regular army officers to induce them to remove within the American lines. Col. John Gibson, (he who took down the words of the famous chief Logan), comman- ded at Pittsburg, and was particularly earnest in per- suading them. The Wyandotte chief Half King said :
"Two powerful, angry and merciless gods stand ready, opening their jaws wide against each other ; you are sitting down between both, and are thus in danger of being devoured by the teeth of either one or the other, or both. * * * Consider your young people, your wives and your children * * * for here they must perish. I therefore take you by the hand, lift you up, and place you in or near my dwelling, where you will be safe and dwell in peace. * * * * Take also your teachers with you, and worship God in the place to which I shall lead you, as you have been accustomed to do."
Both Col. Gibson and Half King were sincerely de- sirous of protecting these Indians. The red heathen, Half King, was thus kind to them though he knew they had previously warned the whites when red raiders were coming. Gibson was urgent because he knew that the frontier desperadoes were beginning to look toward Gnadenhutten. The fact that the Christian In- dians would not fight was inspiring to the desperadoes. At Gnadenhutten blood might be shed and scalps taken without danger.
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But in spite of warning, and in spite of a certain knowledge of impending danger, these Christians re- fused to leave their homes. Their determination, was in the mind of one honored historian, due to their "blind fatuity."
This is a matter of the utmost importance. Look at it without prejudice. It was not "blind fatuity." It was not "blind folly," that kept them in their homes. It was a sublime faith in the Christ whom they wor- shipped that held them there in spite of danger. There are no stories known to books so touching as those that describe the faith of wild men, red or black. The missionaries and their wards believed that God would protect them. It is a fact worth remembering, es- pecially by those who, once a week, with bobbing heads, mumble some sort of creed, and then live, the devil knows how, the rest of the time.
Early in September, 1781, a party of British and Indians, numbering 140, led by Simon Girty, came to these settlements and carried away all the Christ- ians to Sandusky. A miserable winter followed, and food became so scarce that many parties of Christ- ians went back to Gnadenhutten to gather corn that had been left standing in the fields.
In some way the white men of the western coun- ties of Pennsylvania and Virginia learned that these parties of corn gatherers tarried about their fields for days at a stretch, before returning to famine-stricken Sandusky. At Gnadenhutten were Indian men, women and children who would not fight, even if arms were given to them. The opportunity for the cowards and assassins of the frontier had come. Indian scalps
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could now be obtained without danger to the scalpers. To get the scalps of Indians who would not fight, nine- ty frontiersmen gathered at Mingo Bottom, (two and a half miles below the modern Steubenville, Ohio), to organize for the raid. It was not an association of frontier outlaws and desperadoes only ; men of the first social rank at the frontier were among the number. They met by night to avoid publicity, for they feared that the humane Col. John Gibson, commanding at Pittsburg, would send a squad of regular army sol- diers to stop them. To their thirst for innocent blood they added at the very inception of the movement, de- liberate treachery, for they sent word to those whites who might oppose the raid that the expedition was going to bring the Moravians to Pittsburg for safety. It is important to keep this treachery in mind.
Col. David Williamson of the Pennsylvania militia eagerly took charge of the raiders. If there were grades of depravity in this gang, Williamson was of the lowest grade. Doddridge, who was Williamson's per- sonal friend, says that naturally Williamson was "not cruel," and that to "murder a prisoner" was against his natural feelings; but he was guilty of "too easy compliance with popular prejudice."
The fact of the matter is he was a politician of the meanest class, and to curry favor among the most de- graded voters in the region, he smothered his humanity, and took the lead of these raiders. It is not a little shocking to find writers who suppose they help Wil- liamson's case by showing that he was naturally hu- mane.
Col. John Gibson, who was commanding officer
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at Pittsburg, learned that an expedition was going. He sent orders, imploring messages as well, but was unable to restrain the gang, and he therefore sent a warning to the Moravians. The Moravians, however, had faith in their God, and they therefore remained harvesting their corn, for the benefit of their hungry brethren at Sandusky.
Williamson and his followers started for Gnaden- hutten on the third of March, 1782. A Christian In- dian whom they found in the woods a mile from the settlement, (a half breed, the son of a white Christian named Schebosch), they chopped to pieces while he begged for life. But when they reached Gnadenhutten they went among the harvesters in the most friendly manner, and expressed regret and pity "on account of the mischief done by the British and hostile savages." "They likewise spoke freely" of the Moravian char- acter, and expressed kindly appreciation of the fact that they had "never taken the least share in the war."
Finally the white men said they had come to con- duct the Moravians to Pittsburg, to get them out of reach of the British and the savages. Feeling grateful for the apparent kindness of these white men the In- dians delivered up such arms and goods as they had, that the whites might care for them, and then went to the woods and brought packages of things that they had concealed there.
Meantime the whites sent a party over to the nearby Christian settlement called Salem, where other Mora- vians were found and enticed to Gnadenhutten. On the trail, this party of whites "feigned great piety," and discussed Christian doctrine with apparent sincerity.
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MONUMENT TO THE INDIANS MURDERED AT GNADENHUTTEN.
Mississippi Valley.
Having gathered all the red Christians within reach, together at Gnadenhutten, and having deprived them of every weapon down to their pocket knives, the whites suddenly fell upon them with thongs, and bound them all.
The white men then gathered in council to deter- mine how to kill the Indians. Eighteen of the ninety were now sick of the part they had taken in the affair, and after protesting against the killing of any of the Christians, left for Pittsburg, taking one Indian boy with them. The other white men gave the Indians until the next day to prepare for death.
The Indians passed the night in prayer, in singing hymns the missionaries had taught them, and, in spite of their doom, they praised God for His loving kind- ness and blessings.
When morning came they were all-men, women and children, to the number of ninety-six-bound to- gether by their hands, two and two. A woman called Christina fell on her knees before Colonel Williamson and begged for her life, but the Colonel, with his eyes on the voters around him, told her he could do nothing for her.
When bound, the men were driven into one house, and the women and children, who numbered thirty- four, were driven into another. Singing and praying aloud all marched to their doom. And when they were within the houses, the white men waiting there, toma- hawked and scalped them. "The voices of singing and of supplication failing one by one, the silence that fell upon the place" at last told when the slaughter was ended.
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One lad of fifteen years was so little hurt that he managed to slip his bonds and drop into the cellar, where he lay concealed while the blood ran down be- tween the floor boards in streams. Another boy sur- vived. He was struck on the head with a tomahawk, stunned and scalped, but he lived to describe the hor- rors through which he had passed, although the mob held a jubilee and set fire to the two slaughter houses before they left for home.
The blackest and most disheartening crime known to American history was the slaughter of the inno- cents at Gnadenhutten-the Tents of Grace. To at- tempt to palliate or extenuate it is to insult the intelli- gence of the reader and to add to his indignation.
Yet I venture to note that these Indians were not burned alive. It was reserved for degenerates of the end of the Nineteenth Century-members of the white race-to burn at the stake individuals of a less-devel- oped people.
This is not to express a lack of faith in the devel- opment of Christian civilization, but to point out that many facts indicate a progress of degeneracy among the few, side by side with the progress of enlightened humanity among the many.
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COL. AARON OGDEN.
Aide in the expedition of Gen. John Sullivan against the Indians, etc. Portrait painted and engraved by A. B. Durand.
OLD
FORT LEXINGTON
XVIII
FIGHTING THAT FOLLOWED GNADENHUTTEN.
A Second White Raid in Search of Scalps of Indians Who Would Not Fight, and the Result-A Need- less Retreat that Became a Panic-The Whites Who Remained Calm when They Heard of the Slaughter of the Innocents at Gnadenhutten, Felt "a Profound Sensation" when the Story of Crawford's Death Was Told-But only Quakers and Moravians so Much as Observed that Injustice to an Inferior Race Was Unprofitable.
A peculiarly disheartening feature of the Gnaden- hutten crime is the fact that the white people who were too humane to take part in it were yet unwilling to punish the perpetrators, or even to ostracise them. The scalps of the murdered Christians were flaunted on the streets of Pittsburg. The officers of the Con-
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tinental army and some few other leading men, did express their condemnation, but the greater part of the people openly applauded the act. War had gener- ated a species of murderous insanity, even among a people naturally humane, while the naturally vicious were incited to emulation. An expedition of 480 mil- itia men from Pennsylvania and Virginia was organ- ized to go to Sandusky, on Lake Erie, then the tem- porary home of the remaining Christian Delawares. The fact that the Christian Delawares were to be raided was enough to induce many of the Williamson gang to volunteer for this expedition, and others who were emulous of the Williamson reputation, joined in.
Mingo Bottom, two and a half miles below Steu- benville of the present day, was the place of rendezvous, as on the Gnadenhutten expedition. On arrival there, the forces, according to custom, elected their com- mander. Col. William Crawford and Col. David Williamson were the candidates, and although Craw- ford held a Continental commission, and was a more capable officer, the popularity of Williamson was so great that Crawford won by five votes only. William- son was, therefore, made second in command. Dr. John Knight was the surgeon, and Jonathan Zane one of the guides.
Starting on May 25th, 1782, the command marched through the (modern) Ohio counties of Jefferson, Harrison, Tuscarawas, Holmes, Ashland, Richland and Crawford, and into Wyandot county, Ohio. The Sandusky River was reached, three miles south of the modern Crestline, on June 2, and the next day camp was made near the modern Wyandot. On
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the 4th, Upper Sandusky Old Town, an Indian village, was found deserted, but the scouts afterwards dis- covered a band of Indians.
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